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Metallic nanowires by full wafer stencil lithography
O Vazquez-Mena1, G Villanueva, V Savu
1Microsystems Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. oscar.vazquez@epfl.ch
Nano Letters
|September 27, 2008
Summary
Researchers fabricated metallic nanowires using stencil lithography, achieving 70 nm wide aluminum and gold wires. This method demonstrates wafer-scale fabrication of conductive nanowires for electronic applications.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
- Electrical Engineering
Background:
- Fabricating metallic nanowires is crucial for advanced electronic devices.
- Existing methods face challenges in achieving large-scale, high-resolution production.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate the feasibility of stencil lithography for fabricating metallic nanowires.
- To characterize the electrical properties and morphology of fabricated aluminum and gold nanowires.
Main Methods:
- Utilized 100 mm stencil wafers with focused ion beam-fabricated nanoslits.
- Deposited aluminum and gold nanowires onto substrates with predefined electrical pads.
- Analyzed nanowire morphology and measured resistivity and current density.
Main Results:
- Achieved nanowires as small as 70 nm in width and 5 µm in length.
- Measured resistivity of 10 µΩ·cm for aluminum and 5 µΩ·cm for gold.
- Demonstrated a maximum current density of approximately 10^8 A/cm² for the nanowires.
Conclusions:
- Stencil lithography is a viable technique for wafer-scale fabrication of metallic nanowires.
- The fabricated nanowires exhibit excellent conductivity suitable for electronic applications.
- This technique enables the production of nanoscale conductive elements for future technologies.
